ne pas a.v.a.l.e.r. : high and dry

version originale

27 février 1995, High & Dry

13 mars 1995, The Bends

4:15

version live

1996, EP Pinkpop

5 novembre 1995, Rock City, Nottingham

4:27

reprises multiples...

17 avril 2001, Plastic Mutations

transient featuring mike moore

4:41

Écrite à l'origine alors que Thom était dans un autre groupe à Exeter (Headless).

Deux ans avant The Bends, quand ils enregistraient Pablo Honey, ils en ont fait une démo, pour voir. La chanson est née sur un rythme piqué à Soul II Soul. Phil avait mis une nouvelle peau sur la grosse caisse, et s'amusait avec : c'est comme ça que le rythme est né. Thom a joué l'introduction acoustique, pour rire, et tout le monde a pensé que ça ressemblait à Rod Stewart. Ils ont enregistré et rajouté des morceaux, mais très bientôt le titre fut mis de côté, parce que ça ne ressemblait pas à un morceau typique de Radiohead (à l'époque).

Au moment d'enregistrer The Bends, quelqu'un a retrouvé la cassette, et ils furent surpris par la façon dont ça collait bien. Alors ils l'ont mis sur l'album, sans même imaginer le réenregistrer. La version de l'album est la version originale de démo, juste remixée. Cette chanson est une des seules où tout n'a pas été enregistré ensemble ; les membres du groupe venaient séparément, enregistraient chacun leur section avant que tout soit mis ensemble.

Thom a parfois dédié ce titre aux personnes âgées, qui n'aiment pas la musique forte. Il a aussi déclaré que cette chanson était à propos, ou était dédicacée à Evel Kenevil (un cascadeur).

I really don't remember the day that this was recorded with our sound engineer Jim. All I do know is that we hadn't arranged the song before we went into the studio, but it ended up sounding great!

Comment nous avons écrit cette chanson

That song was pretty much mine. Originally, I wrote and four-tracked it with a Soul II Soul rhythm underneath, taken off a 12-inch. I honestly don't know now where the lyrics came from. It was something we didn't know what to do with. We did a version in the studio one day, didn't like it, left it. We didn't even listen back to it; we finished it and just said, "This is fucking dreadful."

They'd just put a new skin on the bass drum, and that was the inspiration for the sound. I played the opening bit acoustic, which we thought was hilarious. Colin and Phil laughed, 'cause they thought it wounded like Rod Stewart.

High & Dry was one of the few tracks we've done where we haven't actually been in the studio at the same time. We weren't really into doing the song, so we all came in, did our seperate parts, and buggered off, and our soundman put it all together.

Anyway, two years later, someone dug it up and said, "Hey, how 'bout this? It's pretty good." We were quite surprised. It was one of those things where you record something and can't even remember doing it. We had to relearn it all.

We never did another recording of it. The version on the album is the original demo version, just remixed by Sean and Paul. It's interesting, because at the time we recorded it, it didn't fit in with what we were doing, so we forgot it. But two years on, when we were putting the next album together, it made sense.

We're still working on it live. The nicest arrangement we've had is the one we just did on Jay Leno, where it just ends on "it's the best thing that you've ever had." I always hated playing that last chorus over again. Actually, it would still be better with that Soul II Soul ryhthm.

Yeah, cause we couldn't do a convincing Soul II Soul rhythm. Well, we didn't really want to, so we did a dodgy Rod Stewart version and then ditched it.